Top 10 Smash Burger Mistakes for Beginner Griddlers

I prefer the term happy accident to mistake. I made a lot of them while making Smash Burgers over the last three years. Here are 10 of them that you can learn from so you can make an amazing Smash Burger for your family, so I've got you covered here. on my sheet and the number one tip for making your Smash Burgers is 80 20 ground beef. I don't know why it's 80 20. I'm not a scientist, I'm just telling you I've used 70 30. It's too much fat. and you don't get the crust. I've used 9010 because it's on sale, it's on sale a lot and I'm very cheap, but that's how I end up with 9010, but 910 isn't juicy because it doesn't have enough fat. and you're already crushing it and that seals in the juices, but there's not enough to go around with that 90 10 meat, you know what I mean, so I like to use that for ground beef, so I don't have to clean the meat.

It comes out well when I'm making Ham

burger

Helper. I'm just saying too good for Ham

burger

Helper. You're on the wrong channel, but 80 20 is what you have to use anyway. I would definitely recommend doing it. I only buy the Kroger brand, but you can get some. very good if you want to go to your local butcher, but make sure it's 80 20 ground beef. Tip number two is the serving size of your ground beef balls here. I don't like to go past a three ounce ball so this is just a pound this maybe what you're getting maybe not many people could just chop it up tight here and then make four four ounce balls that's 16 ounces, that's a pound of ground beef.

I don't do that, I think four ounces is too much and here's why, because I don't think it flattens that well and I just don't think it browns like it doesn't, so if you want more meat, double your burgers, make two and three ounces , make three of I don't care, just don't go over three ounces and you'll usually get about five balls of this ground beef, but it's not easy to make, so a special trick you can use is to use a one-third measuring cup to This will usually give us a rough estimate and we should get about five or six balls out of this just to see where we are, so now that we have our meatballs and they look pretty terrible, I mean, that's where they are.

We're on they're not packed very well, let's pack them, this is my next tip, don't do it and I repeat, don't overpack your meatballs, okay, I'm talking like four little ones, one, two, three four, that's it , stay away, that's all. I mean, it's like I don't know if you've ever made muffins or seen a recipe where it's like 13 strokes with the whisk and then you just stop and they look lumpy and they're like no, if you go overboard. mix a muffin it dries out if you pack this meatball too much it won't flatten or brown so I literally like four just for shape they don't need to be perfect I don't even want to Call them meatballs because then that makes you want to make them perfect like their first spaghetti, but they're not for spaghetti, they're Smash Burger balls, so Four Tops, you know, we'll do it again here, okay, look how messy.

It's not even anything one, two, three, four, okay, that's it, don't do it like a snowball like the one you throw at your brother when you're young and then he gets a nosebleed and then mom gets mad at you. . I know from experience, but don't do that just four four little times on your hand and then you'll be ready for our advice. What we're going to do is put in these little Smash Burgers. balls, we're not going to call them meatballs because we're not going to pack them too much like meatballs, we're going to put these little Smash Burger balls in the refrigerator, so you're located in the refrigerator right now, so we don't want them. to get to room temperature I usually like my meat to come to room temperature, like steaks and stuff, but to get that crust we really want to keep them cold and then pull them out at the last minute, so I usually roast them.

The buns prepare the vegetables, make sure the griddle is hot, do all that and then when it's done, I'll take these things out of the refrigerator and

smash

them on the griddle. There is no shot. I almost forgot when I'm here. The temperature often people don't get their iron to a high enough temperature 450 is fine, ideally you want to get to around 500 in my opinion, I mean you can get it hotter, you can get it really hot. I think five is enough, but a lot of times people make these Smash Burgers for around 375 400. I mean you won't get the sear you're looking for if you don't have an infrared thermometer.

I highly recommend getting one not only for this cook but because like everything you're going to do at The Griddle, you really need one, but it will come in handy for this, you want to make sure this thing is piping hot on high, ready to

smash

into that burger. the first time. I made Smash Burgers. I made them in the normal order of the burgers. I only put the meat. I thought I'd toast my bagels and stuff later. No, that's wrong. These things cook very quickly, especially if you have them in a three ounce ball like I already did.

I told you and you smash them, and especially if you have the griddle really hot, like I told you, they last like a minute and a half at most, I don't know, so I want to toast your buns first. I'm going to sauté some onions, some mushrooms, maybe you want to do peppers, muddy them if you're going to cook vegetables to cook with them, like asparagus or something, all that needs to be done, all of that is ready, this is the last thing that you're going to put in The Griddle are these Smash Burgers because they're going to cook really fast when you flip them.

I mean, they almost don't even need to be almost completely cooked, you're flipping them to put. the cheese and then, that's it, okay, you have to rub this burger really well, okay, that sounds weird, you have to flatten this burger and rub it on the sides and make everything as fine as possible, okay, sometimes, people. just take a spatula down the middle and now you have these fat sides there and you don't want those fat sides so you want everything to be as thin as possible you want to see holes I know, I know That sounds weird, but trust me, you'll want to see the holes, the cheese will cover it, it's not the prettiest burger, it's not what you're thinking.

Pub style burger in your head, it is, it's smashed. It's supposed to look ugly, it still tastes delicious, so make sure you smash everything as fine as possible and that's where a steak weight or a Burger Smasher really comes in handy. I saw this on the Angus Beef YouTube channel and I did it and I really think it helped me. I put my burger sauce on top after smashing it, that's right, and then I flipped it in that sauce and that helped make it juicy. I added a little more flavor. It's really worth a try I think it's good I've heard of people who just make mustard.

I think In and Out Burger maybe someone knows, let me know in the comments if you know. I think In and Out Burger puts mustard on their burgers or maybe their griddle. or something like that, but this is all the burger sauce you make. I put it there and then you know what it could be what you want many times. It's like a hodgepodge of whatever you have in your refrigerator. It seems like everything I would do. being at a cookout it's like ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, relish, maybe a little onion and garlic, mix it up and I just put it in there and then turned it over and let it cook in that and it came out great, I recommend it strongly.

Another bug I used. What I have to do is salt and pepper the balls initially and I don't do that anymore. I put them on the ground, flatten them on the griddle and then season them once they're on the griddle, it's easier that way. They are so thin that I don't worry about making both sides, I just make one side with salt and pepper. I also don't take out my shakers or my pepper mill. I put them in a bowl here so I can pinch and pinch and see like you would in a restaurant they do this like in restaurants so I have salt and pepper like this or just salt in a bowl because like I said it's cooking super fast, super fast, don't you want to. be looking for other things, so make sure you're prepared ahead of time and I can just pinch some salt and pepper and put it right on the burgers after smashing them using a spatula.

Okay look you can use any spatula you want technically and you can just slide it in from the side coming in, however if you have one with a beveled edge, you can see it has a beveled edge, it's at an angle, even my scraper dough also has a beveled edge and I use it a lot. you're going to get under that burger after you smash it, flip it super easy, so you have to get in there to get the crust, you really have to get down there, you don't want to like just scrape up the ground beef, cross the griddle you want You can use the side of the spatula or a beveled edge one if you want and you can even flip it sometimes, so instead of doing this I would go up and down like this, that will really help your burger lift because you have taken advantage of the spatula to know how to make a great Smash Burger, but do you know what you're going to put on top?

Have you ever heard of an upside down bun? You should see the video on your screen. now then